An Unexpected Visitor (One-Shot)
by jossellen
Summary: The Doctor meets a girl who knows far too much about him and is startlingly familiar... (11, but 10 is mentioned. No companion, set between the Ponds and Clara.) (My first story, let me know what you think. Constructive criticism more than welcome!)


The Doctor knew someone was waiting outside his TARDIS. The screens alerted him to a petite dark-haired girl hovering nervously outside the front of the blue box, and he watched her with intense curiosity. She looked like she was psyching herself up for something… Probably a first date or something…

He'd been bored out of his mind since his last companion (a young Silurian who'd run away from home) had eventually decided TARDIS life wasn't for him and had run back home to his parents. But the Doctor couldn't say he was particularly sad about it, the child had actually been a bit of an annoying brat. The Doctor hadn't had any long-term companions since the Ponds. There had been a period of time where he hadn't left the TARDIS at all; just zoomed backwards and forwards in time around their house. He found some comfort in watching ordinary lives pass, oblivious humans who saw no real beauty in the world, but still believed it to be there. Who scoured the night skies, not a clue what was really happening, but believing in it all the same. These were the things he found fascinating. Occasionally he would watch a family in a park, and imagine them to be the Ponds if he'd never interfered with their lives. A small child on the swings, the mother pregnant with their second child… The love he saw in these scenes tore him apart. When Amy and Rory… left, he was angry at himself for so long… when would he learn that all he did was ruin people, leave them broken and empty; a shadow of what they were when he found them. He ruined Amy and Rory, Martha, Donna… and Rose. He still sometimes found himself thinking about Rose, even after so long...

But nowadays, like thoughts of the Ponds, these memories were shoved to the back of his cavernous mind and locked in a brimming draw of things he never wanted to think about. He swore that after ruining so many lives, he wouldn't set out to destroy another… that couldn't happen again. There is never a happy ending when interfering with humans' lives.

However, after so long having been starved of basic company, the Doctor's interest was definitely piqued by this girl outside his TARDIS. He watched her on the screen above the control desk, waiting to see what she was doing. She stood and fiddled with her fingers, biting her nails and sorting her hair. Definitely waiting to meet someone. She turned around, and the Doctor could see her face for the first time. It shocked him for a moment, she wasn't quite as young as he'd thought she was. And her face… It was so familiar! He was transfixed by this person, leaning into the screen staring intently at her. She looked about 20, older than a teenager but not yet feeling like an adult.

He was shocked further as she took another deep breath and started heading towards the TARDIS, intently looking ahead, right at the handle on the wooden blue door. As the door started to creep open, the Doctor panicked and scurried to hide in the corridor adjoining the control room. He found himself peeking out from the entryway, watching this girl stare in wonder around the inside of his TARDIS. She was quite small, with a petite frame. Her long dark hair fell in waves down her back, over the top of a too-big greyish looking shirt that must have been her dad's. She just stood at the top of the steps up into the control room, gaping at the walls, the floors and the whirring engines below, and at the control panel itself, a magnificent and slightly eccentric looking contraption that took up the main base of the TARDIS control room.

The girl snapped her head round, looking towards the Doctor's hiding place, sensing someone watching her.

"Is- is there somebody there?" She called out timidly.

"There is indeed!" The Doctor was grinning as he evacuated his hiding place, excited by this new company. "Hello, what can I do for you? No, don't answer that it's a stupid question." He paused for a moment. "Who are you and how did you find me?! No, no that's too menacing… ah! Oh dear. My ship seems to be complaining about something…" The strange man leapt over towards the centre of the room, and started pressing buttons.

The girl's gaze followed him around, and sure enough a red light had just started to flash on the dashboard, alerting the Doctor to a malfunction somewhere on the ship. She'd been told about that.

She'd been told a lot of things. About his over-enthusiasm, his need for danger but search for peace. His _great hair_. She'd even seen some of the sketches in the diaries her mother kept so firmly hidden away…

But he was different. He didn't look like he was supposed to.

"It's definitely you isn't it?" She asked before she could stop herself.

The strange man who wasn't quite how he should be whirled around to look at her. He banished the space between them in two long strides and stared into her face with a suddenly scrutinising gaze. She remembered now, something else they'd said; he might have changed how he looks a bit. There was a word for it…

"You've regenerated!" She exclaimed, remembering.

He grinned, and leapt away from her towards the control panel again. "Yes! Exciting isn't it! I quite like this one… but I'm not sure about the hair… do I look like a girl? Actually the last time it was the teeth, they were definitely wrong. This time it's the hair… I don't think it looks as good as the last one. But still! Can't change how you look eh!?" He laughed. Actually, he could.

"At least I've got better dress sense now… that old suit I used to wear… Not cool." He trailed off, staring at her. "Hang on… where did you get that shirt?"

The girl smiled sheepishly, after all this time she still wasn't exactly sure how to tell him who she was.

"My dad gave it to me… well actually I stole it off him. He doesn't have a very good dress sense either, but I liked this shirt." It had taken her a lot of courage to wear that today. It had almost been a ploy to see if he'd recognise her from the shirt. Of course he wouldn't.

"Hmm… not sure I like it. Anyway! What can I do for you? An old friend sent you to find me? An enemy maybe?" He looked genuinely curious, staring intently into her face once more, studying her features as if trying to commit them to memory.

"Something like that…" The girl mumbled, feeling uncomfortable by the sudden proximity. The Doctor stared at her in complete curiosity for a moment more, then turned away back to the control panel.

"So where do you want to go? Or when, I can do when too. I'm guessing by the fact that you're here, you know what this is…" He patted the control desk lovingly.

"I know exactly what this is! If it's okay, I want to go somewhere special. Special to me. To my family…" She looked at him through her eyelashes, seeing if he'd get the clue. If he did he didn't show it.

"And where would that be?" He asked, an amused twinkle in his eye.

"I'll do it!" The girl said with a grin. She ran up to the dashboard and started flicking switches, pushing buttons and spinning dials like she owned the place. The Doctor stood and stared at this young girl… driving his TARDIS for him…

"Oh, no, not a good idea… Don't press those ones they don't like it… Oh wait…" He trailed off as he realised this girl actually knew what she was doing.

This time when they landed, it was him who didn't know where they were. He was the confused one. Not fair, he liked knowing everything before everyone else. That was his _thing_. He glanced over at her, standing by the control panel, slightly out of breath from the exhilaration that came with travelling in the TARDIS.

"Go on, go out." She said, her expression turning serious.

The Doctor didn't say a word, but headed towards the door, in complete wonder as to where they could possibly be right now. He was guessing somewhere on earth… Probably even in the same time as they'd just left. The ride wasn't nearly as bumpy or long enough to have flown through the Time Vortex. He glanced in curiosity back at the girl who was still staring at him from her spot by the control panel.

As he stepped outside, he knew he was right. They were still on earth, and still in the time they'd been in before. But they were somewhere else entirely. Somewhere that only existed to the Doctor in his most painful of memories, locked away in the rattling draw at the bottom of the cabinet in his mind. He stood, gazing out at the desolate landscape for what felt like hours. The sea wind whipped at his hair, and his feet slowly sunk into the wet sand beneath him.

"Why have you brought me here…" His voice cracked on the last word. His head fell forwards, and she was scared he was going to cry. "Why! What could_possibly_ make you want to bring me back to this… this… AGH!" He ranted for a while, eventually calming himself down. She waited for the realisation to hit him.

Slowly, he trailed off. "How old are you…?" He asked her tentatively, striding towards her once more. He cupped her face, studying it even further.

"Twenty-two" She said, keeping eye contact, staring him down.

"And… When were you born?" His voice was barely audible now.

"2011…" She mumbled. His mind was doing calculations. She waited patiently for him to catch up. She revelled in the moment, she knew that the Doctor catching up was not something that happened often.

He stepped away, closed his eyes, and silently took a deep breath. "What's your name?"

"Jacqueline." She said, slowly.

"They named you after Jackie? Original." He seemed upset. She didn't understand, she thought he'd be happy to see her.

He looked out again across the landscape, out to the sea. "Bad Wolf Bay…" He sighed, with a twisted nostalgia. "Where is this again? Norway?" He paused, and she nodded.

"I hate this place." He said quietly, and stalked silently past her back inside the box.


End file.
